


the only one i still know how to see

by thelilacfield



Series: there is no world where i am not yours [27]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Black Order Wanda Maximoff, Dysfunctional Relationships, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Injury Recovery, Wanda Maximoff Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:01:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28130583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelilacfield/pseuds/thelilacfield
Summary: “...Ms. Maximoff?”It jolts her to her bones, rattles everything she is. That name. It isn’t hers, she left it behind, but the blue eyes of the being in front of her are searching, turning to icy shock the longer they look. “Ms. Maximoff...what happened to you?”
Relationships: Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Series: there is no world where i am not yours [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859725
Comments: 5
Kudos: 38





	the only one i still know how to see

**A/N:** AU-dvent day 17! This is been a fic I've posted a first chapter of and then removed before, so I took this challenge as an excuse to finally finish another take on villain Wanda!

Inspiration for descriptions of Wanda's Black Order look are drawn from [this fanart](https://www.instagram.com/p/CI3-KniForB/?igshid=8gjeyptr4ink). I think we can all agree we understand why Vision would be enchanted.

I'm on Tumblr and Twitter **@mximoffromanoff** if anybody wants to chat about all things scarletvision! Enjoy, and please let me know with a comment if you do :)

**Warning: A lot of violence and murder. Seriously, a lot. Wanda's relationship to Thanos is very unhealthy, and her psyche is extremely damaged for much of this fic. Be warned of suicidal thoughts, severe injury and the ensuing recovery, a side character committing suicide and abuse from a parental figure. This is a dark fic, and please take care of yourselves and don't read if you think anything could trigger you.**

* * *

She knows. Time slows for a moment, stops, and she knows the terrible agony of a soul torn in two, the heat of her powers squirming beneath her skin, ricocheting from her fingertips in a blast that incinerates the crowds of robots around her. The red doesn't fade like it usually would, curling around her fingertips, the ground beneath her shaking with each step, the sounds of the world faded. Every step just leads her closer to the truth, to fully realising what her heart knows to be true, though her mind may try to deny it.

A child running towards one of the lifeboats. Rogers running to a corner, a collection of crashed cars and fallen slabs of concrete, and she sees Barton kneeling over a broken body. Recognises even far away the dust-matted silvery hair, and the world turns sideways, hollowing her out, and she can't help the scream that turns the two men's attention to her.

"Don't look," Rogers insists, sprinting to her side, shield forgotten on the ground. "Don't look, Wanda."

But she sees him as Barton staggers to his feet, shell-shocked and hands awash with blood. The blood spreading out in dark stains across Pietro's clothes, his eyes glassy and unseeing, and there are tears coursing down her cheeks, and Rogers's arm holds her back, keeping her from going to her brother's side. "Let _go_ of me!" she shrieks, and Rogers only holds her tighter, and red laces over her fingers, coalescing into a bright ball of scarlet that knocks Rogers backwards, skidding over himself in the dirt.

She collapses next to Pietro, smoothing a hand over his unmarked face, tracing the familiar features, seeing her own wrecked face reflected in his dulled eyes. "How could this happen?" she breathes, her voice pathetic, muted, grief cracking her all to pieces.

"He was protecting me and the kid," Barton says, rough and stricken, and he sets a hand on her shoulder, squeezing slightly and igniting a slow burn of fury in her chest. "He died a hero, Wanda. I know that this hurts, but he died a _hero_. You should be proud of him. He saved a _child_."

"How can I be proud when he's _gone_?!" she says, voice rising to a scream, and when she shoots to her feet Barton stumbles away from her, slowly raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. She looks around, sees the quinjet on its side, and ignores the shouting behind her staggering towards it, stumbling on her grief, choked by anger like thorns gripping to her bones.

She may not know anything about flying a quinjet, never invited into this world of heroes, cut off from finding any joy in the world, but her powers flow through her fingertips into the control panel, and the craft ascends despite the shouting. Pulling the small silvery communications device from behind her ear, silencing the shouting of the Avengers who allowed her brother to simply die, she drops it to the floor and stomps on it, shattering it.

Another thought starts the guns on the jet blazing, tearing up the ground and the buildings that are still standing, but when she sees Ultron the bullets just glance harmlessly off. Screaming in frustration, she clenches her fists and the jet rises higher and higher, the nose of it pointing almost directly upwards, flying faster and faster into the sky.

When she breaks the atmosphere, she'll die. The jets aren't built to travel into space, she's sure of that. She can die too, in a fiery explosion or simply running out of air, and she'll be glad to. She'll see her family again, and she'll never have to look on the faces of the so-called heroes who let them all die.

"Wanda," the screen to her right blurs into life, and it's Barton's face, a bloody scrape marring his chin, but he's alive and looking at her with a softness she can't stand to see. He let Pietro die, there's blood on his hands, and he has no right to stand there straight and tall and living when her brother paid for that life. "We can't track you in stealth mode. The fighting is over. We won. And we are so, so sorry that Pietro paid for this victory, but we will never forget him. He'll be honoured like a hero should be. And I need you to turn the jet around."

"I can't," she snaps, teeth gritted.

"Then take it out of stealth mode, and we'll pilot you back to the ground from here," he says, soothing and gentle and so irritating. "You did great today. You're going to make an incredible Avenger."

Hearing him say that, even _associate_ her with these people who think themselves heroes no matter how many lives are lost for their mistakes, she snarls and feels her eyes burning red, a mere flicker of will making the screen shatter in a shower of sparks. They'll assume she's dead. Maybe they'll convince themselves they tried to save her. Convince themselves they're heroes.

"Ms. Maximoff." She starts with a shriek at a voice behind her, and turns to Vision standing in the quinjet, somehow, and he's just looking at her. "You must stop this. Come back to the ground."

"Get away from me!" she snarls, punching a series of random buttons in an attempt to get him out of the quinjet.

"Your life is worth more than this," he insists, but she can't stand to even look at him. An imprint of Ultron, created to be more, and she clenches her hand and red shoots in a bright shining beam towards him, straight into his chest, and knocks him backwards and straight through the walls of the quinjet.

Then she's flying through shades of blue, into black, and she lets the velvet darkness swallow her.

Her last conscious thought is of a soft yellow glow.

* * *

She grew up wishing on birthday candles. Fallen eyelashes. Dandelions. The eleventh minute of the eleventh hour. Anything that might bring some peace to her world, smooth out the creases of concern in her father's forehead, make her mother the bright woman she once was, stop the rattle of gunfire that echoed in the distance. Even after they died, she cupped the bruised flicker of her one candle between her hands and wished and wished until the wish was all she was.

But stars were always her favourite thing to wish on. The jewels of the night, always there. Something to place her faith in while everything collapsed. And they would always listen, never turning away from the desperate whispers of a child, a soul lost in the wildness of the world. Simply solemnly winking at her, until the dawn took them from her. But they would come back. They would always come back.

And the stars surround her now. So much brighter than they ever seemed from her bedroom window, gleaming without pause, shining through the sky. One wrenches itself free of the dark curtain of the sky, falling in a trail of flames, and she wishes. Some small part of her broken soul remains, twisting with dark anger, and as the shooting star flickers past she wishes that the Avengers will fall. That one day they will be considered villains, not heroes. Everything they deserve for ripping up the foundation of her life served to them on a silver platter.

It's only after several days drifting in and out of consciousness that she realises she should be dead. The quinjet's power cut out the moment it left the Earth's atmosphere behind, the lights flickering out and the engine cutting to immediate silence, and when it did she should've had only hours left. Yet she lives on. The last cruel trick of a higher power that has made sure her life has always skewed towards tragedy, letting her linger on forever in the dark, suffering with everyone she has lost.

She doesn't move. Stays lying prone on the floor of the ship, shivering in the unending cold of space. She can imagine Pietro lying next to her, lacing their fingers together, the winter the cold stole into her blood and bones and she never seemed to stop coughing, and he sacrificed the best share of food to her, covered her in all the threadbare blankets he could find, tried to keep her alive. And he did, he saved her. And she couldn't save him.

Guilt haunts her, the ghosts of the world peering over her shoulders, hiding in the shadows. Her faded mother whispers soft Sokovian lullabies into her ear. The ghost of her father's arm across her shoulders lingers. But they flicker away. They turn to cruelty, their faces in the dark, her hands soaked crimson with their blood, their rotted hands scratching at the door, trying to get in. _Why didn't you save us?_ They chant, they drip poison into her ear as she drifts, and they push into her fragile mind, breaking her apart, collapsing her like the first bomb collapsed their apartment building. When Tony Stark tore her life to pieces.

She is nothing more than a shadow, dressed in the blood of everyone she has lost. And yet, her survival instinct lingers on. And on the minute there is a scratching at her door, she screams, lurches further back into the belly of the quinjet, and her heart beats faster, adrenaline lurching through her veins. The urge to stay alive. Most primal of all human urges. Basic. Yet lingering on, despite her own thoughts that oblivion would be better than suffering.

The ramp opens with a soft whisper of hydraulics, and a tall, thin figure creeps into the light, and it takes all her strength to remain silent when she sees the reptilian face, the long fingers, the malice in the eyes. "No sign of a stone, my lord," the creature says, in a soft sort of voice, almost soothing, and Wanda curls herself further into the darkness at louder footfalls, and holds herself stiller than a statue at the new figure, tall and broad, stooping to avoid knocking the roof of the quinjet.

"It was your belief that led us to this jet, Maw," it says, in a low and terrible voice, and Wanda's knuckles are white clasped around a supporting pole, terror making her heart flutter wildly. "If there is nothing here..."

There's no end to the sentence. There doesn't have to be for the threat to hang in the air, and Maw is bowing, praising, sycophantic. "The sensors may be broken, my lord, I will be sure to check each one over personally. What shall we do with this disappointing junk?"

"Destroy it," the tall figure says, and a broken gasp escapes Wanda before she can silence herself. Both Maw and the mysterious creature it calls lord turn immediately at the scrap of sound, and Maw gives a wave of its hand to tear up the counter she is hiding beneath, exposing her to the world.

"The stone," Maw says, holding out a pale hand, and she just shakes her head. "Defying the will of the Mad Titan will do you no good, weakling. Hand over the stone."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she says, voice so soft and weak, terrified, watching Maw's lip curl. It doesn't believe her. "Please, I don't want anything. Just let me go. Let me drift into space. I don't care."

The taller figure looks down at her, tilting its head, and finally gives a soft chuckle. "I don't often see a desire for death," it says, voice deep enough that it could be world-changing. Move mountains. Crack rocks. Drain oceans. "Maw, we will be taking a guest onboard. Alert Corvus, Proxima and Cull."

And Maw is leaving the quinjet, and the mysterious creature is kneeling next to Wanda, and when she looks up into its eyes she's surprised to see a softness. "Who are you?" she asks, more defiant that she means to be. And it does the last thing she expected.

It _laughs_. "I am Thanos. Some call me the Mad Titan, but I am a merciful man. And you are Terran, aren't you? From Earth?" She nods, silent, and Thanos looks down at her with a new kind of curiosity. "How is a young Terran girl alive this far into the galaxy?"

"You tell me," she says, raising her chin, and he smiles.

"An infinity stone is woven into your lifeblood," he says. "I have never seen this before. Not without it killing the host. It seems you are only stronger for it. No Terran could survive out here without some form of enhancement."

"That's what they called me," she says, lip curling in hatred at the memory of Strucker's doctors, who all looked at her wide-eyed, testing her until she thought she might snap. " _Enhanced_. They feared it. What they had done."

"You were an experiment," he says, and she nods. "Never meant to succeed. They believed you would die." He looks down at her, and it's a comfort. Refreshing, to have someone look at her without fear in their gaze. "You are not enhanced. You are _evolved_. And you are angry, aren't you?"

The moment he asks, she realises. Her anger is a creature within her, spitting and writhing, and she can feel herself begin to glow with it, her emotions spilling through her blood as her veins blaze red. And Thanos is watching her with something like awe in his eyes. Not fear. Amazement at her. What she has become. "They took everything from me," she whispers, fury a fire stoked beneath her words. "My mother. My father. My brother. My home. They ripped my life from me."

"Who?" Thanos asks, and she pictures each of them. In their uniforms, carrying the weight of corruption, thinking themselves heroes.

"The Avengers," she breathes. "They think themselves heroes, but they bring death everywhere they go. They think they're defending the Earth, but they only make it more dangerous."

"And wouldn't you like your revenge on them?" Thanos asks, and the thought is intoxicating. Tearing those people apart, making them see everything they have ever feared, shattering them to pieces and leaving them shadows of their former selves. Killing them, Destroying everything they have built. "I may have a proposition for you. If you are willing to prove yourself."

"What can I do?" she asks, looking down at her hands, conjuring a small spinning ball of red light. "I can't control this. I don't even know _what_ is it."

"You carry the power of an infinity stone inside you, little witch," Thanos says, and the words don't make her angry the way they did when Stark said them. In the mouth of this man, this creature, this _titan_ that wants to help her, they sound soft. Almost affectionate. Like the nicknames her parents gave her, or the way Pietro would call her his baby sister. "An ancient piece of the universe in the time before any of us were here. No one should be able to harness these powers, and yet you can. With time, and understanding, you could be one of the most powerful beings in the universe."

"The _most_ powerful?" she asks, and Thanos nods, giving her a shadowed smile. "I never wanted power."

"What do you want, little witch?" he asks, kneeling with her, reminding her of the way her father would once ask her whether she wanted to play outside or listen to stories inside.

"I wanted to be safe," she says, drawn back to the uncertain days on the streets, in the orphanage, crouched in dust and darkness waiting for Stark to kill her.

"Power is safety," Thanos says, with all the wisdom of one whose life is proof of that.

"I want the impossible," she says, very softly, and Thanos is still and silent, watching her. Waiting for the words to spill from her in a rush. "I want my family back."

"I believe you could have that," Thanos says, and she looks up in shock. "With the power of the infinity stones harnessed, the universe can be crafted into whatever you wish. You could have your family back, one day."

"What do I have to do?" Perhaps this is madness. To trust someone like this, someone not of her world, someone who looks at her with something dangerous flickering in their eyes. But perhaps she is mad. A shell of shadows, filled with flickering chaotic red.

"You met Maw," Thano says, standing, and she stands with him. Finds her feet again, her head clearer than it has been for many months. The world is sharp, and cruel, and filled with people she must enact vengeance on. "He is one of my four elite. My generals. The Black Order." He looks at her with a softening around his eyes. "But they are my children too. Do you understand that? I found them in states like yours, miserable and grieving and aching for a purpose. And I gave them new names and new power and made them part of the fate of the universe. If you can prove yourself, you can be a part of their ranks. You need only follow me."

And she does. In her torn black dress, her red scarf a tangle around her neck, she follows Thanos from the battered quinjet into his ship. When she turns back, the arms of the ship holding the quinjet retract, and a bright blast from a weapons cannon turns the quinjet to dust. Just another artifact of a life she never wanted to live, cast into the dark.

"I call my ship Sanctuary II," Thano says as he leads her through metal corridors. "It is a home for those chosen to ascend here. I hope it will be a home for you too."

At the centre of the ship stands a room set up like a battle arena, and there are four figures within, and Thanos stands behind her to introduce each of them. She has met Ebony Maw, the pale creature who is disturbingly soft-spoken. Cull Obsidian is a giant, silent and still. Corvus Glaive hides his face beneath a hood, a scythe hitched over his shoulder. Proxima Midnight glares at Wanda, lip curling, a spear in her hand. "Why have you brought a _Terran_ before us, Father?" she asks, and Wanda feels her fury surge to the surface.

"You do not judge who is worthy, Proxima, I do," Thanos says, a thunderous intensity behind his words that causes Proxima to fall silent. "And I wish for you to help me." He looks down at Wanda, and sets a hand on her shoulder. A paternal gesture. "Tell my children who you are, little witch."

"I'm Wanda," she says, and her voice sounds so small. Swallowed by the sheer size of the ship. Minimised by the creatures around her, looking down on her. She is only human, after all. What hope can she have to stand up to these powerful creatures? "Wanda Maximoff."

"How sweet," Proxima says, and steps forward, tilting her spear almost thoughtfully to point it at Wanda. "Now we know what name to remember you by when your body is sent to space."

But the first thrust of the weapon doesn't even connect with Wanda. Scarlet springs up around her hands, swelling into a shield that the point of the spear glances off, and it makes Proxima frown. If she expected an easy fight, Wanda will not give her that. If this is her chance to survive, to _thrive_ , to become someone who can return to Earth and have the Avengers begging for mercy, then no one will take that from her. Not some alien bitch who looks down her nose at anyone from Earth. She is more powerful than any of these creatures could imagine. Thanos says she is, and so she must be.

She's never fought like this. Oh, the robots, Ultron's army, she fought them. But they were of metal and mechanics, not a living, breathing adversary. There is something darkly intoxicating about feeling her hands connect with flesh, hearing Proxima's breathing growing heavier with the effort, swirling in spirals of red and untouchable. Drawing a spill of blue blood with a sharp slice of her hand, Proxima giving a howl of agony and stumbling. Faltering long enough that Wanda can snatch her spear with a wave of her hand. Turn the weapon on its owner and force the point deep into Proxima's neck, her blood spilling down her chest, a rasp of a fragmented word escaping her as she collapses to her knees, eyes rolling back in her head before she slumps forward and goes still.

Corvus Glaive lets out an animal howl of agony, sprawling to the floor beside Proxima's body, and Wanda simply stares, the hilt of the spear still in her hand. "You did well, little witch," Thanos says, breaking her from looking at Proxima. A corpse now. Dead at her hands. Her power has killed someone, and that sends a thrill through her like no other. For once, she is in charge of her destiny.

"She is a worthy addition to our order," Maw says, and he gives her a chilling smile. "I believe you to be far more intriguing than Proxima ever was."

"How could you let this _happen_ , Father?!" Corvus is looking up now, eyes flashing with fury, grief painted across his face, and Thanos is looking at him so dispassionately.

"Proxima outgrew her usefulness," he says, and Corvus is on his feet, a hand on his scythe, and the dynamics of the group begin to reveal themselves to Wanda as Maw steps subtly in front of Thanos, raising a protective hand.

"She was my _wife_!" Corvus shouts, "and you dare to call her _useless_?! She was a good lieutenant, a faithful servant, a-"

"And she was bested in combat," Thanos says coolly. "You have bested many potential lieutenants over the years, Corvus. You must prove yourself to remain here. I cannot show favour to someone simply because you chose to fall in love with her. Love is weakness, and when you married her you swore that it would never affect your service to me. Do I have to find a replacement for you too, Tilou?"

The name means nothing to Wanda, but it turns Corvus deathly pale in a moment, and his scythe falls to the floor with a thud as he bows his head in diffidence. "No, Father," he says, voice muted and pathetic. "I am forever your servant."

"And today we welcome a new power to our order," Thanos says, and when he looks on Wanda he smiles. She clings to that smile, the warmth it brings to her chest, being praised. "From this day on, you will leave the tragedy of your past behind. You will rise under a new name. And the universe will see you and the might of your power. They will tremble when they hear the name Scarlet Witch."

* * *

She sheds Wanda Maximoff like a snake shedding its skin. Casts aside the shroud of a girl who loved her family, who thought there was brightness in the future, who wished on stars. Forgets Sokovia, the sunlight on the steeples of the church, the white wonder of winter, the mountains breaking through the mist against a pale lavender dawn. The sound of her father's laughter fades from her memory, the words of the Sokovian folk songs her mother would sing as she baked, her brother's triumphant crowing whenever he'd win a race. She clings only to her anger, fanning that bruised flicker into a flame that sustains her.

The Scarlet Witch is a new creature, emerging from her chrysalid made of madness. Her mind twisted by infinity, by the aching knowledge of a stone from before the beginnings of time. Anger makes her strong, carves her into a weapon, and Thanos nurses her power. He raises her from the broken girl she was when she arrived on Sanctuary II into something so much greater. Where once she wanted to die, now she walks side by side with death. Watching the shadow through glass, sinking her fingers into that darkness. She was dressed in the blood of those she's lost, and now she will drip with the blood of those she kills in the service of bringing balance to the universe.

Thanos has made her new, cherished her until she burns bright as fire. Her eyes a wicked red, glowing bright, spilling terror across the faces of anyone who sees her. She has a uniform now, black and red like blood, formed to her body like a second skin. Something to strike fear into the hearts of weak mortals, but to splash awe into their eyes. When her hair blows in the wind, a dark curtain held back by a headband, she catches mortals looking at her with something like admiration in their eyes.

They are merciful. When she stands with Thanos, with his lieutenants, they don't always kill. They only do what they do to save people, help them stay spinning through the galaxy for generations to come. And they don't drag the torture out. Corvus stalks through the solemn lines with his scythe poised, snuffing out lives in a single swipe. Cull crushes bones and snaps necks, always peacefully silent. Maw is the one who strays into torture, enjoying the screams, but he never leaves them to suffer too long.

"There was another who enjoyed this," Maw says, in that soothing voice. They are tending to the bodies of those they massacred, building a fire to burn each life into ash. It only makes sense to assist in the passing, to cleanse the planet so that those chosen to survive will thrive. "They called her the biggest sadist in the galaxy. There is a room somewhere on Sanctuary II, where she would take her victims. Keep them hanging on the edge of death for as long as she could, their screams echoing around the ship." He licks his lips with a flicker of his thin tongue, eyes gleaming. "I find myself missing the sound sometimes. The lullaby of Thanos' children."

"What happened to her?" she asks, and Maw's eyes darken.

"Stupid child," he hisses. "Thanos was always soft on another, favoured her, and that young girl ruined everything. Nebula, the biggest sadist in the galaxy, was still a coward on the inside. She ran. And Gamora betrayed us. Sabotaged our efforts to win an infinity stone." He slants a sideways look at her. "Her name is forbidden. Our lord was heartbroken by her defection. One day, we will find her. She will pay for betraying him."

No one on Sanctuary II speaks of their pasts. It's only through mind reading that she knows anything, when she lies in her narrow room and lets her powers weave through the ship, searching out the flickers of who her siblings used to be. She forces through the walls each has erected around their pasts, learns who they were before. Corvus Glaive was once named Tilou, living in poverty on Izo Huen, a planet rich with forests and rain. Thanos saw a desire for more in the young boy he was, and took him. Cull Obsidian was a creature of no name, passed through the planets, paid to fight and entertain the rich masses. His captor was killed by Thanos, who had no one in his army of such sheer brute strength. Ebony Maw was a worshipper named Shooni Vorcia on Sulis, a world of rock and reason, whose intellect made him wish for more than a master would allow. Intrigued by the sight of an apprentice killing his master amongst the confusion of a massacre, Thanos invited him to join, and Maw did so with enthusiasm.

And she is one of them, this band of warriors. Thanos raised them all from shadows, people forced into the fringes of society, their suffering ignored, and made them more. Made them immortal - in Corvus' case, that is literal. Where once she was a child, frightened of squeaks in the night, now the galaxy fears her, whispers of the Scarlet Witch. She has become a creature of the shadows, made of madness, and to see terror in the eyes of a man as her fingers crackle with red brings a terrible joy ringing in her chest.

They have their own rules, on Sanctuary II. No one speaks of their past, no one asks any questions. They do not touch each other's weapons. Proxima's spear still lies undisturbed, the tip bent from glancing against her bones when it was forced deep into her neck, her blood spilling blue like the ocean over her pale skin. They do not speak of anything much. Darkness has its claws in each of them, and when you are one with the darkness friendship is not an easy thing to create.

No one questions Thanos. His word is law, spoken from beneath his war helmet, and no matter what he says it must be obeyed. She kills man, woman and child as he asks, with her powers or with her hands. She's trained in hand to hand combat now, able to hold her own against anyone. To knock a man taller and broader to her to the ground, pin her knee against his throat and watch the frantic flicker of his eyes as he chokes for breath. Blood spills across her hands, dries thick and tacky beneath her nails, and she relishes in it. It dries black on her white skin, before she washes herself clean, and she sees herself in mirrors, reflected in the eyes of her victims. Red eyes, dark hair, white skin. A cruel Snow White. The warrior all princesses become when men cannot save them. When no one can.

Garion is a desert planet, the wind bitingly hot, sweat running in rivulets beneath the tight, thick material of her uniform. The massacre is to be larger than usual today, to balance a planet that was never meant to support life, never mind the number of people who have chosen to make their home a place that wants to chew them up and spit them back out. Her dagger swinging at her hip, she feels the heat of the sand through the thick soles of her boots, tucks her sweat-soaked hair back behind her ears and follows the swirl of the wind to the huts that surround the sand.

Screams that aren't a part of the fighting behind her reach her ears, her head turning to a hut, her fingers curling around the jewelled handle of her dagger as she breaks into a run. She's fast now, her body moving with the wind (but not as fast as he was _you can't catch me Wanda I'll always win I'm the fastest man alive now you didn't see that coming_ ) and she kicks the door down to find a man standing over a young woman, tears streaking through dark sand crusted to her cheeks. A frightened girl, and the terrible gleam in the man's eyes, his knuckles bruised and swollen and cracked, blood threading through the cracks in his skin, and she is on him before he can scream.

A hand at his throat, her eyes shining brighter with fury, and he's screaming, a thin wisp of a sound. Until she wraps tendrils of red around his head, and clenches her fist. Then he finally stops his wretched shrieking.

The young woman staggers to her feet, blood trickling from her nose, bruises darkening on her jaw and arms, and she does the oddest thing. She _smiles_. "Thank you," she whispers, and there is nothing to be done except a stiff nod. "You're my hero."

A dark laugh. "That's one thing I never want to be called." And she turns, hair flying, to leave this place and continue killing. Doing Thanos' bidding.

"Wait!" She turns back, to find the girl blinking at her with pretty blue eyes, like shards of the sea in her soft face. "I'm Nety. Who are you?"

"The Scarlet Witch," she says, sure that the name will chase Nety away. But it doesn't. It only prompts this girl to move closer. And for that closeness to make her heart beat faster.

She goes back to Sanctuary II first, with Nety clutching her hand, all wide-eyed wonderment. Takes the girl to her room, the door closed behind them, and loses herself. They're kissing, Nety's hands on her skin, and it feels wonderful, a lightness brought back to the shadows of her life. She touches someone with no intention to kill, only to feel the softness of their skin, to hear the gasps that accompany every caress, and when Nety whispers, "What should I call you?" she makes a fatal mistake. Her first.

"My name is Wanda," she breathes, and Nety smiles, and they are falling onto the narrow bed, the world pitching sideways. Wanda kisses this strange girl, holds her desperately, gasps and tosses her head back when Nety's gentle fingers reach the apex of her thighs. It's the first indulgence, the first pleasure, and she takes everything she can, gorging herself on Nety's curves, on the way her name is whispered, hanging in the air like the hum of grasshoppers in the spring.

It's the most alive she's felt since she flew a quinjet out of Earth's atmosphere, blue fading into black and nothingness. Watching the light leave someone's eyes doesn't compare to watching Nety's eyes dark with desire, hear the huskiness in her voice, to feel her trembling. Her hands are so pale against Nety's darker skin, not flickering with scarlet energy, and she leaves kisses bruising every inch of skin she can, wounding in another way. A witch's kiss, burning into waiting skin, and Nety cradles her, kisses her, whispers her need.

It seems to last hours, until she is sated, shaking and seeing the world flickering with flashes of bright light, and Nety is smiling softly, curling up to her, head on her shoulder. Her name is still on those lips, spoken like an impassioned spell, whispering like a prayer, and her blood is singing with it. "Wanda," Nety whispers, and she kisses her, softer than before, a tender touch between two lost souls. And Nety kisses her back, strokes a gentle hand over her hair, and sighs in contentment when they part. And it makes the world change, spin, glow with something that's been coldly absent since she left Earth. Is this happiness?

The door opens in a terrible hiss, and Thanos is looking in on them without compassion in his gaze, even when Nety shrieks in shock and snatches the sheets around her chest. Readjusting her uniform, she levels her gaze on him, and Thanos just gives her a pitying look. "How weak of you, little witch," he says. "I thought you were more than this."

"I only sought out pleasure for pleasure's sake," she says, defensive, coiled like a snake about to strike. "I will leave her on the next planet. Nothing has changed."

"Look at you, little witch," Thanos sneers. "You are soft. Keeping a mortal in your bed. Haven't I made you more? Do you truly expect to get everything you want by showing mercy? Showing _tenderness_?" His lip curls, and he glares down at her. "Love is weakness, little witch. If you are weak, you have no place in my sanctuary."

"I'm not weak," she whispers, but her voice is not a strong as she wants, shaking. The way her eyes glow is burning her, chaos taking her from the inside out, she wants to curl into a corner and cry while her cruel demons laugh.

"Aren't you?" Thanos asks, and she shakes her head, determined. "Then prove it to me, little witch. Prove I was right to not just let you drift into space with your ship. Show me why I stopped Corvus from killing you when you bested Proxima." He glances at Nety without pity. "Kill her."

"Father-"

"Did you mishear me, little witch?" Thano asks, and his voice is cold. Daring her to defy. "Kill her. Or I will throw you into space and watch as you die. I'm sure Corvus would enjoy the spectacle."

Nety is wide-eyed, cowering back against the headboard, frightened again, and she turns to her. It's as if someone else controls her as she raises a hand, red swelling around her fingers, twisting and turning, glowing brighter, burning her skin like the dulled edge of a flame. "Wanda, please," she breathes, and she sees the Scarlet Witch reflected in her eyes. Crackling with power, eyes blazing red, lips set in a hard line. That's who she is. "Please, _stop_. You're scaring me."

"Good," the Scarlet Witch says with Wanda's lips, and she slashes her hand in a hard, straight line. Tears a deep cut through Nety's neck, blood pouring down her chest and into the sheets. No last words. No goodbye. The way it's meant to be.

When the bloodstains are blooming like summer flowers across the sheets, she leans over the edge of the bed and vomits, and Thanos is at her side, a hand rested on her back. "I can only blame myself, my little witch," he says, soft and sympathetic. "I have been too soft on you. On all my children. I should have known that allowing Corvus his little dalliance would have consequences." Tears are on her cheeks, like shards of glass, and he is softening. "Don't worry. I won't let anyone else make your mistake. You won't make it again."

He carries her from her room, stinking of death, to the weapons vault. And he closes the door, and Maw is creeping forward, a sickening smile on his thin lips, and spinning his finger to bring knives rising from their rests, thin blades. Wickedly sharp. Like needles ( _it's alright, sweetheart, it's alright, it'll make sure you don't get sick, it only hurts for a moment then you won't feel it, hold my hand, you can have chrusciki for being so brave_ ).

When the night is over, there is only the Scarlet Witch left. A weapon, a being of pure power, red that lights her eyes and whispers evil in her ear as she sleeps. Thanos calls her the Mistress of Chaos, with something like pride shining in his eyes. Throws a victim to her and lets her carve him apart from the inside out, tearing into his mind and burning his memories to ash with a smile on her face.

* * *

Corvus drops to one knee with a grunt of exertion, a clawed hand at his chest where the imprint of her boot is written into his armour. She prises the knife he tried to swipe at her with from the thick material of her wrist guard, tilts her head and smiles at him. "I'm sure you did your best, Corvus," she says sweetly, and his lips pull back in a snarl that makes her laugh.

"Quite the show, little witch," Maw says from the corner of the room, observing them with his calculating gaze, and she smiles at her brother. "Father wants to see you."

She leaves Corvus spitting with rage, endlessly polishing the blade of his scythe, to walk through the corridors of the ship, her heavy footsteps in her thick-soled boots echoing against the metal panelling. Her reflection slides past her, and she won't look. If she looks, she'll see the souls of everyone she's killed dancing in her eyes, and she'll go mad that way. Ignorance is bliss. Ignorance is sanity.

Thanos is waiting in his room at the centre of the Sanctuary II, and gives her a smile when she opens the door that squirms happily in her chest, makes her feel warm and praised and loved. Seen, in a world that has always ignored her. "Father," she says, and he looks down at her with something warm in his eyes. Not love. He doesn't love, not since the wayward Gamora betrayed them and ran and broke his heart in that selfish act. But warmth. "The Maw said you wanted to see me."

"I do, little witch," he says. "The Maw tells me you've been working hard training in hand to hand combat. With your capabilities, you're a beautiful recipe for chaos."

"The Mistress of it," she says, and Thanos nods. "Do you want me to train harder, Father?"

"No," he says, and she bows her head, kicking herself for assuming. She needs to be better, to please him, to not risk leaving herself as the mercy of Maw and his horrifically creative tortures again. She has been a faithful servant to Thanos for almost three years, through all the stars and so many people dying at her hands. Long enough that she knows him. "I have a mission for you, little witch."

" _Me_?" she asks incredulously, and he nods. "Why not Cull? Or the Maw? Or even...even Corvus?"

Thanos lets out a low rumble of a laugh. "Your rivalry with Corvus will never cease to amuse me, little witch," he says, and she bites back the part of herself that wants to retort that their rivalry is anything but petty. That Corvus Glaive hates her, and will forever. Because Thanos himself set it up for her to murder his wife. "Cull, Corvus and the Maw are all too obvious. This a mission solely for you." He gives her a smile with a chill at its edges. "Don't you want to go back to Terra?"

Terra. Earth. _Home_ whispering in a weak part of her, the part that still looks at the stars and remembers the way they shone from her narrow bedroom window in that apartment, her brother breathing deep and slow in slumber in the other bed while she crouched by the window, blanket thrown carelessly around her shoulders like a superhero's cape, and traced the shapes of constellations with the aid of an ancient yellowing encyclopaedia her father found in a used bookstore. But no, that part of her must be forced deep down in the endless pit of her chaos. Forgotten. Terra isn't home anymore. Sanctuary II is home, safe, the one place where she is understood and protected.

"What would you have me do, Father?" she asks, and Thanos smiles.

"The infinity stones," he says, and she lowers her gaze. Tries to forget his terrible rage when a lead on the reality stone slipped between his fingers like water running from cupped hands. How she bore the scars of that rage, her ribs that cracked beneath his assault and took weeks to fuse back together, the ache every time she took a breath, the bruises that darkened her face for days, slender rivulets of blood running between her fingers while she frantically patched herself up, desperate to not let her siblings see that she cried for the pain. "Maw senses that there are two on Terra. But we know not where they are or who may be guarding them."

"Surely Maw is far more suited to this mission that I am, Father," she says, and Thanos' eyes suddenly darken, his jaw tightening with tension that she knows means she said something wrong. Means she will have to prepare for some torture, a hit that knocks the breath out of her, leaves her gasping and crawling away to her room in humiliation, resolving to do better, be the servant Thanos needs, live up to what he believes she can be, repay him for saving her life.

"You are Terran, and you are the only one of my children who will be able to search the planet without arousing suspicion," he says, and there's no underlying chill of anger in his voice. Not that it does anything to calm her frantic, frightened heart. Thanos can change on a whim, slip from calm into fury so fast it's dizzying, rattling the stars with his anger. "And the power of the mind stone runs through your blood, little witch. You will be able to trace its location on Terra."

"And what should I do if I find it, Father?"

"You _will_ find it, little witch," Thanos says, and she suppresses a shudder at the threat hanging heavy in his words. "And when you do, you will return to Sanctuary II, and we will descend on Terra and take the stone by force."

"Yes, Father," she says softly, bowing her head. Thanos is not to be looked in the eye. He doesn't see her as an equal, only her servant. His Mistress of Chaos, tearing the world apart, able to silence someone with only a swipe of her hand that opens a wound, terrifying victims into submission with the permanently blazing red of her eyes.

"But there is a condition, little witch," Thanos says, and her head snaps up, the fear invading the pit of her stomach. "The Avengers are on Terra, as I'm sure you remember." A cold smile curls over his face when her eyes blaze brighter in anger, her last memories of Terra crashing into her. The ground cracked as Sokovia rose into the sky, buildings collapsing in clouds of dust and silenced screams, and the blood on her hands that she still sees at night, no matter how many times she scrubs her skin raw. "And, though my Mistress of Chaos could defeat them all alone-"

"I would kill every last one of them, Father," she snarls. They are on Terra, the group she's always wanted revenge on. She could have Tony Stark at her mercy, punish him for the way he ripped her life apart, slip one of the wicked knives from the weapons vault between his ribs and feel the hot rush of his blood across her fingers. Watch him thrash as the life drains out of him. Smile when the light leaves his eyes. She could tear into those six minds, those minds that convinced her to join them and let her brother die for it, and rip them to shreds.

"And I admire your enthusiasm, little witch," he says, and she preens under the compliment, the show of affection. "But I think it will be all the better for us to tear the Avengers apart psychologically rather than outright kill them. To see them broken before I let you put a knife through Stark's heart."

"Oh, that would be wonderful," she breathes, imagining it. Seeing Stark sobbing for all his mistakes. She could show him her nightmares, her parents' arms around her, the way she burrows into the warmth they provide until they turn to bones and she screams, pushes them into the open graves marked with their names as they whisper, " _Your fault_." She could have Barton at her mercy, show him her brother,covered in blood, eyes glazed with death, asking, " _Why didn't you save me_?" They would all know how she has lived most of her life dreaming of the crushing darkness, trapped, with the endless ticking of a bomb forcing its way into her mind, counting down the moments until her death.

"I thought you would agree," Thano says, smiling down at her. "You will be my secret weapon, my little witch. It is time for you to hide your chaos."

"Hide it?" The words trip out of her, uncertain. He has encouraged her chaos so much since he brought her safe to Sanctuary II that she can no longer hide it, her eyes blazing permanently red, made her into something the galaxy whispers of in fear. "Father-"

"Would you dare defy me?" he asks, and her mouth snaps shut as she shakes her head. "You will hide your chaos, daughter. You will be the bomb planted in the peaceful field, hiding yourself away amongst the Avengers. You will learn all you can about them. And when you have them trusting you, you will send out a signal to us, and you will show them exactly what you have become with the Order at your side."

The delicious thought of it sings in her blood. They betrayed her, allowing her brother to die, holding her back from his side, not even letting her bury him. And she can betray them, she can make them trust her with wide eyes and tragic stories, until she turns and tears them apart. Betraying them will be so sweet, seeing herself gilded in their minds when she breaks their memories and destroys everything they are. "I will do it," she says, and pride glows bright in Thanos' eyes.

"Maw!" he shouts, and the reptilian creature Wanda calls brother appears in the doorway, those strange eyes gleaming. He drops a pack at her feet with a clunk of weaponry, and Thanos smiles at her. "I'm afraid you cannot wear that uniform on Terra, little witch. You must look as you did the last time they saw you."

"I destroyed those clothes long ago," she says, and Thanos simply gestures to the pack. When she kneels down, the leather of her boots creaking against her skin, she finds a similar outfit to those she wore on Terra, when she fancied herself the villain of the story. Not what she is now, just a child playing at a part.

"Now, my dear, I'm afraid the next part of our plan will not be pleasant," Thano says when she is dressed, a red scarf fluttering around her neck, laddered tights and a short skirt. She can't help cataloguing all the ways this outfit is not suitable for combat, how foolish she must have been to think clothes like these were good for the fight. "But the Avengers are vulnerable to a damsel in distress. We will plant you among them injured and in desperate need of help. They will listen."

"A damsel in distress?" she asks, and he nods. And anger crackles in her powers, the red lashing to the surface of her skin, her eyes burning. "I am no such thing."

"Play the part," Thano snarls, and she screams when Maw slides a knife between her ribs and blood spills over the thin material of her dress. Thanos stands from his throne, steps down to her side, and brings a fist swinging into her, knocking her to the ground with head ringing. "I am sorry, my little witch," he whispers, as those hands used to violence break her apart meticulously, heedless of her screaming. "It must be done. This will make you stronger."

She doesn't know how long Thanos and Maw take her apart. When they're done, Maw cleans her blood from his knives, and Thanos calls Cull to carry her broken doll body to one of the smaller ships. With a dull grunt, the enormous creature dumps her onto the floor, tosses her pack onto a seat, and closes the door behind her. Screens flicker to life, pre-programmed with a long winding route to Terra, and the only sound she can make even in triumph is a groan of pain.

Though the journey is long, she forces herself not to slip into unconsciousness. There is blood drying dark and thick on her skin, bruises that cover more of her than clothes, and every time she takes a breath the familiar jagged pain of broken ribs jars through her. If she falls asleep, she may not wake up, and she can't fathom how much it would hurt Thanos to have gone too far. She will not fail him. No matter how much pain she is in, she will lie on the floor of this ship, unable to move, and stare up at the spectrum of shades of blue blurring over the window as the ship judders into Terra's atmosphere.

The world is a patchwork of green and gold and blue below her and she can't help a moment of wonder. Among the steel of a spaceship, she'd forgotten how blue the sky could look. The flight pattern guides her ship across water, the white crests of waves sweeping around jagged rocks, and she feels her eyes glow achingly brighter as she casts the web of her telepathy out across the world. Searching for something that chimes with what exists inside her.

A gleam of yellow crosses her consciousness, and a slow smile graces her bloodied face. She'll find what Thanos is searching for. She'll prove that she was worthy of ascending to the Black Order. And when she proves that, it won't gnaw at her that she killed Proxima. She won't feel a strange draining in her chest when she sees Corvus' expression drop into sadness. All she needs to do is prove that it was right. That she truly is the Mistress of Chaos. Worth so much more than a simple woman with a spear.

The ship reroutes itself at her whim, her powers still singing strong through her though her body is broken, following the connection to the mind stone that grows stronger with every passing moment, her ship moving so fast but so silent, more efficient than anything Terrans could hope to produce. She is beyond them now. Thanos raised her up and made her a part of the galaxy, infused her with the power of the stars, the ancient things Terrans dismiss as myth and magic. She will find them, convince them she is nothing more than a damsel in distress, become one of them. Betray them, watch their eyes glow red as she forces her way into their minds and pulls at their fragile threads until they burst with scarlet and fall apart screaming. She will revel in it.

A monitor at her right bursts to life, flashing a warning as a low alarm begins to sound, jarring against her mind, and she weakly curls her fingers to wrap her ship in a sphere of scarlet, deflecting the bolt that would have knocked out her thrusters. Shutting the map of the flight route down, she turns her aching head to see a man in a silver metal suit flying alongside her, pointing a gun mounted on his arm at her. And she flicks a single finger and watches the thrusters on his suit sputter and die, and he slips away, falling through the air.

Though she could never fly one of these ships, used to autopilot, she can turn the controls with her mind, sinking tendrils of her powers into the computer and forcing the ship to lower until it hits the ground with a gentle bump. But, much as she might wish to leave the ship already raising her hands, scarlet magic swelling in the cradle of her palms, her eyes blazing and her lips tugging back in a snarl, she must stick to Thanos' plan.

She must lie still on the floor of the ship, aching, until she hears voices. And the first she hears, though slightly metallic when modulated through the suit, is one that sends an instant thunderbolt of hatred jarring through her. She hasn't heard that voice in over two years, but she would know Tony Stark anywhere.

"How the hell did that break through the defences?!"

"Faster tech than the forcefield could recognise," comes another voice. A woman this time, doubtlessly the Black Widow. "We're lucky Vision caught movement before she could do damage."

"So who wants to see what's inside?" She doesn't recognise this voice, and must assume it's the silver-suited man she sent falling. He doesn't sound hurt, but she hopes she at least scratched the suit. "Calling not it."

"Oh, for God's sake, it's probably empty," the Black Widow snaps, and the door hisses open as footsteps approach, and Wanda has time to process the woman standing over her, her red hair falling like flames around her shoulders, the muzzle of her gun steady in her hand, before she claps a hand to her mouth. "Oh my God...Tony, get an EMT, _now_!"

"What's going on?" comes Stark's voice, and he shoves the Widow out of the way. And she can't stand to see him stare down at her broken, the horror and the sympathy that invades his eyes. He certainly never felt sympathy towards her before. "Oh _holy shit_!"

"So will I call the EMT while you're 'holy shit'-ing over there?" the third man asks, the member of the Avengers she doesn't know.

"Don't sass me, Rhodes, we've got an injured woman who just fell out of the sky in a fancy ship our sensors couldn't detect to deal with!" Stark yells, spinning around, and the Widow is kneeling down next to Wanda, her hands pressing gently at her ribs and making her yelp. "How much is broken, Nat?"

"Can you move?" the Widow asks softly, and Wanda can only blink at her. It hurts to even move her head, hurts to breathe, hurts to try to speak. Thanos forgets sometimes that she is Terran, that her body is more breakable than his other lieutenants. "Christ, Tony, I think we're dealing with an almost death here. Did you call the EMT?"

"I did," comes a fourth voice. Gentle, clean, and she recognises it, something in her calling out in a shade of yellow. And a crimson face plated in green appears in the doorway, the gears in blue eyes twirling in distress when that being stares down at her. Ultron, she remembers, Ultron back in a new body.

_("I looked into your head and saw annihilation."_

" _Look again.")_

Then the being gasps, and he leans down to her side, and she wants to squirm away. She remembers those eyes, the golden cape that fluttered behind him, and when he reaches for her she whimpers, the sound caught high in her throat. She can't let Ultron touch her, he killed her brother, and even this new body is still Ultron, it has to be. ( _Look again)._

"...Ms. Maximoff?"

It jolts her to her bones, rattles everything she is. That _name_. It isn't hers, she left it behind, but the blue eyes of the being kneeling over her are searching, turning to icy shock the longer they look. "Ms. Maximoff...what happened to you?

"Wait...Maximoff?" the Widow questions, and then her eyes turn back to Wanda, and she presses a hand to her mouth, tears sparkling in her eyes. "Oh my God...oh my _God_ , Wanda? We thought you were _dead_."

"She damn nearly is," Stark comments, and if she could move at all she would snarl at him. "Did you tell the EMT it's an emergency, Vision?"

"I'll take her to the medbay myself," the being says, and he moves her so gently. He winces every time a hiss of pain escapes her bruised lips, slowly drawing her into his arms, and she stares up at him. The glow of the stone at the centre of his forehead, the stone she came to Terra to find, and she wonders how easy it would be to just snatch it and fly back to Sanctuary II and her family.

But then he cradles her in his arms, and he steps out of her tiny ship to take off towards the sprawling compound. She can do nothing but curl aching fingers into his sweater, and cry out in pain at the jolt of him stumbling to the ground in the medbay, shouting to the white-clothed team, "A bed, now!"

Then he's whispering to her, a constant soft steam of, "I'm sorry, Ms. Maximoff," as he lays her down on the bed, dried flakes of her blood coming away when his hands leave her. A doctor is leaning over her, and for some reason he is holding her hand, not letting go. She hears him say, "Is she alright? Is she going to die?" to the doctor, and for some reason the distress in his voice squirms warm in her chest.

"Ms. Maximoff, is that your name?" the doctor asks, and she nods slightly, though the motion jars pain through her. "Ms. Maximoff, I am going to give you a general anaesthetic before I look over your injuries. Your body needs sleep to begin to heal. Vision is going to stay here, so you can be assured someone is watching you. When you wake, we will discuss the next steps of your recovery."

The last thing she knows before her exhausted, broken body succumbs to the anaesthetic is the caress of Vision's thumb over her palm, the soft glow of yellow at his forehead.

When she wakes, the white walls surrounding her are startling. She's grown so used to the steel walls of Sanctuary II, and she groans at the brightness pressing into her aching eyes. And then there's a soft whisper next to her, a hand around hers, a whisper of, "It's alright, Ms. Maximoff. Try not to move too much."

She turns her gaze to Vision, still sitting at her side. He's wearing the same clothes, his gaze on her filled with a flood of concern, and she groans. The more she wakes, the more she's aware of the pain ricocheting over every inch of her body, and he reaches out to put a hand on her shoulder when she makes to sit up. "Doctor Miller wants to speak to you," he says. "Can I let her in?"

Unable to find the words, still caught up in processing that fact that he stayed beside her, that someone else put her back together, that the last two years of patching herself up and gritting her teeth to hide the pain are over, she nods. And Vision must give some sort of signal, because the doctor immediately enters the room, a strand of blonde hair falling from her cap, her scrubs stained with dried blood. Blood that Wanda realises in a terrible shock must be hers.

"Ms. Maximoff," she says, and it's almost warm. It makes her ache to be spoken to so softly, bringing back too many memories of family. Not the Black Order, that which calls itself a family but breaks each other. Her _real_ family, her before family, the three people in a warm apartment in Sokovia. "You have certainly been through the ringer. What happened?"

"I-" The single syllable is the first she's spoken in so long, but she can't bring herself to begin explaining. How can she explain to this Terran the logic of Thanos, how he hurts her to make her greater. She can still feel the burning in her eyes, and wonders how terrifying she looks to people like her.

"We stitched up those knife wounds, they weren't deep but they were _nasty_ ," the doctor says, and she thinks silently of how she screamed when Maw slid those knives into her. It was humiliating, the way she cried out under his assault. She thought she'd become better, capable of taking a beating without making a sound. "You have eight broken ribs, three of which are serious breaks. There is severe bruising on your spine, you're lucky the trauma will heal and not result in permanent injuries. The bruising to your larynx explains why you were struggling to speak when the Avengers found you. And I could go on and on, Ms. Maximoff." She sighs and says, "But all your injuries will heal. I don't think there will be any permanent damage to your body. You've been lucky."

Of course she has. Thanos knows how to push a body to the brink without destroying it completely. He knows exactly where the line is, and of course he took her to it. But he would never cross it. He would never destroy his Mistress of Chaos.

The doctor gives her a look of gentle concern, the sort of look that has no place on Sanctuary II, no place in the Black Order. "I don't know what happened to you, Ms. Maximoff, and I won't pry," she says softly. "It's not my place. But if you need psychological support, it is available."

"Thank you, Doctor Miller," Vision says, and she becomes aware of how his hand is still wrapped around her. His skin is curiously warm, despite the low temperature of the medbay, and when she turns to look at him he smiles and her heart quivers. "The circumstances are unquestionably terrible, Ms. Maximoff, but it is...wonderful to see you again."

"Is it?" she asks, her voice small and hollow.

"We were all convinced you were dead," he says. "Tony spent weeks scanning the atmosphere for the quinjet, even after it disappeared from SHIELD's sensors. He was devastated when he had to admit he couldn't find you."

"Was he?"

"You were part of the team, Ms. Maximoff," he says softly. "Clint blamed himself for your brother's death, and when Tony couldn't find you he blamed himself for yours too. He was devastated when we held our own memorial for you, I have never seen grief like it."

"You held a memorial?"

"For your brother, when we first returned from Sokovia after Ultron's defeat," he says, and she blinks. She thinks of him as Ultron, but he speaks as if they are entirely separate entities. "And for you, around six weeks later. When Tony decided the end the search for you. The memorial stones are in the grounds, if you ever wish to see them."

"I never..." She ducks her head and quietly says, "I didn't think you'd care that I was gone."

"Oh, Ms. Maximoff, I...we cared very much," he says, and a golden glow suffuses his cheeks, and she tilts her head in wonder. "In fact, they...the rest of the team are waiting to see you. They want to hear your story." He pulls a bundle from the table beside her bed and says, "We washed your clothes. Um...you can change before I take you to see them."

When she tries to climb out of the bed, she stumbles as her body becomes aware of pain, and he catches her. His arm wrapped around her for the briefest moment, and it sets off something in her she's been trying so hard to suppress since she had Nety in her bed on Sanctuary II, since Thanos forced her to slit an innocent girl's throat and tortured her for the crime of taking affection from another. And she startles quickly away from him, swallowing back the rise of curiosity. She cannot become distracted from what she is here to do.

Vision takes her deeper into the compound once she's changed back into her black dress, long socks covering some of the lurid bruises on her legs. She still has a black eye, her lips swollen and bruised, cuts slowly drying into scabs across her face, and she shouldn't be aware of any of this. She should be wearing these bruises as a badge of honour, showing that she is one of the Black Order, that she was not afraid of the fight. And the fight roars in her when she faces the Avengers in their reduced numbers. Just Stark and the Widow and the silver-suited man they called Rhodes, all of the staring at her over cups of coffee.

Vision sits down next to her, and she has to wonder at why he's taken on the role of her caretaker. What makes him feel as though he needs to. But then Stark adjusts himself in the armchair and says, "We got the rundown on your injuries, Wanda. You're pretty banged up."

"I'll heal," she says brusquely. "I always do."

"And it's remarks like that that make us wanna know what happened to you," Stark says, and it's sharp and pressing. "Where have you been all this time? How the hell are you still alive?"

"I..." She has to dance carefully here, stretch the truth into a story that could make sense, and she should have thought harder on this. She was too distracted by pain in her journey to consider what she would do when she successfully infiltrated the compound.

"You don't have to tell us," the Widow says, her voice gentle. "Stark just gets off on interfering in other people's business and sticking his nose where it doesn't belong." Rhodes barks out a laugh, and Stark puts a stricken hand to his chest as the Widow smirks.

"I thought I was going to die," she says softly, everything from that day flooding back. Her brother's body, her screaming, Stark's face on the monitor calling her back to the ground, Vision in the quinjet behind her, his eyes full of hope. "That's what I wanted. I didn't want to live anymore. And I passed out when the quinjet left the atmosphere, but then I...I woke up."

"Have you just been floating through space for three years?" Rhodes asks, and she shakes her head.

"Someone found me," she says softly. "This...alien. He was huge, he was a...titan. And he took me onto his ship and offered me a home if I would train my powers to work for him." She grits her teeth and lies, "But I refused." And a part of her wonders if she wishes she had made that call, if she should have told Thanos no when he offered her a place amongst his order. Who she would be now if she had chosen that path.

"How come he didn't just kill you?" Stark asks.

"He took me prisoner, and he came to me every night asking if my answer had changed," she says. "He...he had his soldiers torture me to make my powers come out. They...changed me."

"We couldn't help but noticed the red eyes are permanent now," the Widow remarks, and she sniffs, rubbing her burning eyes.

"It _hurts_ ," she breathes, the damsel in distress, innocent and hurt. "And when I gave him my final no a few days ago, he snapped. He told me I could go back to Terra and die, and he beat me, and he threw me into that ship I came here in."

"You were his prisoner for this long and you never said yes?" Stark asks, and she nods. It's a lie, she said yes so quickly, and the human part of her she can usually silence is screaming that what she's telling them should have been the truth. "Damn, Maximoff. You're tough as nails."

"So that's the story," she says, and shifts her legs beneath her. "What are you going to do with me?"

"Do with you...Jesus, Maximoff, you were just some madman's prisoner for three years, we're not gonna do anything to you!" Stark exclaims, shaking his head as if the very thought is horrifying. As if he didn't allow his company to sell weapons that destroyed her parents. As if he didn't set loose the very robot that killed her brother. "You can stay here for as long as you want and recover. We're not going to ask anything of you."

"And if I want to go out into the real world?"

"Then you can do that too," Stark says with a slight shrug. "But there is better medical attention here. I don't know if someone who isn't a US citizen and has been believed dead for this long is gonna have a very good time out there."

"Stay." The single soft syllable comes from her side, and she turns to see Vision looking at her, his eyes spinning with something unexplainable. "Please."

"Okay." It comes out of her almost unbidden, a simple acquiescence. "I'll stay." And she knows it's what Thanos wants it, but her father is the furthest thing from her mind when she says yes.

Something about the way Vision looks at her pulls the word from her chest. After Stark and the Widow and Rhodes have trailed away to train, the strange man with his crimson skin stays with her, and she stares at the swirling yellow of the mind stone as he sets up the chessboard for them to play. It would be so easy to just take the stone and leave.

But something in her compels her to stay.

* * *

Time passes. Her and Vision grow closer in long nights and early mornings, her heart calling out to him no matter how hard she snatces it back. Her dreams dance with blue eyes and a perfect golden mind. Her injuries heal, bones stitching slowly back together, the stitches coming out of the knife wounds at her side, the bruises on her face fading to green then yellow then nothing. Winter gives way to early spring, sticky buds of new leaves on the trees surrounding the compound, and she makes no move to ingratiate herself further with the Avengers.

It seems she doesn't need to. For all they are supposed to be a suspicious group of people, never trusting, they seem so delighted that she is back with them and didn't die in the cold dark of space that they would offer her anything. Stark sits and stares at her while she tries to read in the living room, and when she snaps her book shut and glares at him he finally says, "I'm sorry."

"For what?" she snaps, and he bows his head.

"For a lot of things," he says, and moves to look her in the eye. "Before he took off with Sam, Rogers told me about you. How much you hate me. That it was my weapons that killed your parents."

"I stared at your name for three days thinking I was going to die," she spits, and he looks wounded by her words. The red curls hot in her eyes and she could hurt him. He's vulnerable, and her powers could spear straight through him and rip him apart.

"And I am so ashamed of that," he says, and she blinks. "Wanda, please believe me that I didn't know what my partner was doing. Who he was selling to. But I should have. It shouldn't have taken me being the one who got hurt to stop it all. And I know you can never forgive me-"

"You made Ultron," she snaps. "He killed my brother. My entire family's blood is on your hands, Stark."

"I'm sorry," he says, and he truly looks ashamed. "I will say it a thousand times. Every single day. I know you won't forgive me. You don't have to. But I...you could do a hell of a lot of good as a part of this team. I don't want to be the reason you turn away from what you could be."

"You...want me to be an Avenger?" she asks, and he shrugs. "I would expect some sort of...ceremony."

"It's not a knighthood, Maximoff," he says, a slight smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. "We are running with fewer members than usual anyway, since Rogers took Sam and they left. And I...I think Vision would like to see you stay." He gives her a look of softened eyes, and says, "I see the way he looks at you."

"It's nothing," she mumbles, though her attempt to maintain composure is somewhat wrecked by the blush stealing into her cheeks. She is the Mistress of Chaos, and she ought to be far beyond blushing at the thought of romance. She is made of magic and mystery, more than a mortal, but looking at Vision across a crowded room makes her heart beat faster.

"We support this unspoken little thing between you," Stark says, grinning when her blush grows darker. "Me and Nat and Rhodes. He's been so lonely. And you're like each other, aren't you? You're both made from the mind stone." He shifts, standing up, and says, "I dare say the two of you together are our best bet to defeat the terrible thing that's coming."

She flinches and when she asks, "What thing?" her voice is so high-pitched it must surely be obvious that she's lying.

But Stark doesn't seem to notice. "We have an ally out in space," he says. "An ex of Rhodey's, if you can believe it. Or maybe they're getting back together, I don't know. They give me that unfinished business vibe, you know. Anyway, Carol says there was an attack on a planet named Xandar. There was an infinity stone there, and someone took it. By the time she got to Xandar, there was nothing left but dust and blood." He eyes her, and he says, "This guy's name is Thanos. And he sounds very much like the alien you described holding you prisoner." His gaze probes into her, searching out her deepest secrets, and he asks, "Was it Thanos?"

"Yes." It leaves her in a single breath, and Stark's face melts into sympathy. He moves to sit next to her, sets a hand on her shoulder, and for one absurd moment she wants to turn to him and bursts into tears, sob out every lie she's told and everything she's done, every action that makes her a monster. He's offering her a place, a family amongst those who look at her with sympathy, people who see the good in her. A good she thought Thanos had beaten out of her long ago.

"You are so strong, Wanda," he says softly, and a sob escapes her lips, aching where her ribs are so recently healed. "It'll be an honour to fight next to you." Then his gaze slants up, and he grins. "Lover boy just came back from the store."

She looks up to Vision watching her, and she moves towards him. Takes his hand in hers under the smirks of Stark and Romanoff and Rhodes, and pulls him towards her bedroom, ignoring his gasp of, "Ms. Maximoff...what are you doing?"

When she shuts the door behind them, she immediately turns around and asks, "Do you like me?"

"I consider you a friend, Ms. Maximoff-"

"You know what I mean," she snaps, and his gaze darts down and quickly away from her lips. "Do you want me? They all seem to think you have a crush. Do you?"

"Wanda-"

"Because I'm a monster," she says, and his eyes go wide, and there are tears stinging her throat. "I...I lied to you all. I worked for Thanos, I didn't just sit in his prison. I've killed people, Vision. I've watched them die and smiled. I came here to betray you all to Thanos, to find the stones on Terra. And you should go and tell them and get me sent away and prepare to fight him before he gets here."

"Wanda." The breath of her name in his soft voice brings tears to her eyes, and he's still crossing the room to her. His lips press so softly to the top of her head, and his arms are around her, and he's whispering, "I always knew something in your story didn't add up. You were pushed, and you broke. It's not your fault-"

"Everything I did, I did with my own hands-"

"You remind me of another daughter of Thanos we met," he says, and she stiffens in shock. "Her name is Gamora. Ms. Danvers knows of her and her team, and we've met them a few times in planning a united assault on Thanos and his army."

"Gamora?" She remembers all the stories, the one who betrayed Thanos, the one who made it so he would never love again. The one who ran away. "She's still alive?"

"Thriving, from what we know," Vision says. "It's not your fault you were drawn into Thanos' web, Wanda. He saw that you were powerful and vulnerable, and he broke you. We...the Avengers-" He cuts himself off and finally whispers, " _I_ want to help you mend yourself again."

"What if you can't fix me?" she asks, soft and broken, and he lifts her chin to look into her eyes, the shine of the mind stone dancing in joy.

"Then I will love all your broken pieces," he says, and then gold curls into his cheeks, his way of blushing. "I didn't mean to say that, Wanda, I...I know that is a very intense statement to make, so...you don't have to say anything."

"I won't," she says, and his face falls. And she instead reaches up and presses her lips to his, feeling him stiffen in shock, his mouth frozen beneath hers.

Slowly, an achingly long moment as the stars flicker in the night sky, his hand moves, cupping against her hip, making her body sing as his long fingers trace over the curve of her waist, rising until his fingertips are brushing her neck and she's pressing further into the kiss. Her breath catches in her chest as his hand sinks into her hair, and he's kissing her back, moving his lips against hers. Clumsy, so gentle, and her hands are cupping his face, tracing the lines of his cheekbones. His arm is curling around her waist, pulling her closer, fingers spread wide against the small of her back, each one a pinprick of a flame she seems to feel even through her clothes. With her eyes closed, it seems as if all she can see is the swirling yellow shine of his mind. So good, and so pure, untainted by the darkness that hides in the cracks of reality, and somehow this beautiful being of light is kissing her. Chasing away her shadows.

Running her thumb across his cheek one last time, she breaks the kiss first, drops back onto her heels, and watches him. The peacefulness in his face, his hand never making to move from her back, and when he opens his eyes her stomach lurches with desire at the way he's looking at her, like he's seeing her for the first time. So much in his gaze, something that could change worlds. Move mountains. Crack rocks. Drain oceans.

"I never understood kissing," he says softly, and his gaze is resting on her lips, her hands still cupping his face, the air between them sparkling with electricity. "I couldn't comprehend what was so pleasurable about placing one's lips on another's." And he pulls her closer, into his lap, so she has to look down to meet his eyes. "But...with you...I..." She watches the flicker of the gears in his eyes spinning, frantic and lost in a lack of ability to process.

It seems the man defeats the machine, as Vision cups his hand to the back of her head and draws her down, breathing, " _Wanda_ ," against her lips. And she's ready for him, wrapping her arms around his neck as he draws her onto her tiptoes, and his kiss is so intense her feet fly out from under her, and she tangles her legs around his waist, the warm body against hers singing through her after so long out in the cold.

She hasn't tasted desire since Nety, and it's different with Vision. That was two lonely souls colliding temporarily among the stars. This is more, so much more, the golden thread of the mind stone dancing between them, his lips so warm on hers, his declaration of love ringing through her. It's her hands at the top button of his shirt and his gasp, and she breaks the kiss to whisper, "Put me on the bed."

"Okay," he mumbles, and she giggles. A sound she hasn't made in so long, just tumbling out of her, and he's staggering across the room to set her down on the bed, standing awkwardly over her. "Now what?"

"Kiss me again," she says, and pulls him down by the collar. She dances her fingers down the buttons of his shirt, laying his chest bare for her hands to explore, the warmth of his crimson skin contrasted to the smooth cool of the vibranium plating. She draws him slowly on top of her, the lean length of him over her, and when he breaks away he's panting, the gears in his eyes spinning. And she gazes up at him, sprawled on the white sheets of her bed, freer that she's been for three years. "Do you want this?"

"What?" he asks, lust glazing his eyes, and she reaches for the hem of her shirt, pulling it up over her head and dropping it over the side of her bed. It lays so much of her out for him to stare, the silvery scars from knife wounds that criss-cross so much of her chest, and when she looks back he's gazing at her like a dam inside him broke. " _Wanda_ ," he croaks, and leans down to kiss her, one long-fingered hand sliding up her side to clumsily cup her breast, and she _keens_ , bowing her body up into his.

"You have to tell me if you want to stop," she breathes frantically, though his thumb is strafing over her nipple through her bra and making her words hitch. "Vision... _Vizh_ , sweetheart, you have to-"

"I don't want to stop," he breathes, and when he looks at her she sees everything. Possibility. The future. _Love_. "I want you, Wanda."

"But-"

"I don't care what you've done," he says, and every word is a song, sending her spinning. This is acceptance she hasn't known in years, no one pushing her to be better, no one hurting her for disobeying. "Just be who you are. I want the magical woman who was the first person I ever saw."

"I was?" she asks, blinking against the heady lust misting the air around them, and he smiles.

"You were every one of my firsts, Wanda," he breathes, and leans down to kiss her again. His hand slides beneath her back, tugging at the clasp of her bra, and she surrenders herself to him.

When she sees him naked for the first time, she watches the contrast of them together, his crimson hand against the pale skin of her stomach. He traces every scar with his lips, until she's writhing beneath him, wondering how she went so long without him. If she had never turned away, they could have stolen so many more moments, perfect fractions of time. Moments like the split-second when he pushes into her, and they're both laid so open, staring at each other. She sees every star in his eyes for a moment, the universe wrapped up in a single man.

She breaks the moment with a groan of his name and her hips bucked up into his, and he kisses his name from her lips, her hands all over him. When she loses herself, she gasps his name, and he kisses her shoulder and murmurs, "I love you," when he spills inside her, and they clutch at each other, sweat-slick and panting.

Lying in his arms, she's more at peace than she's truly been since her parents died. And he pushes her curls out of her face and cups a hand to her cheek, a gentle smile on his perfect face. "Your eyes have stopped glowing," he says softly, and it takes a moment for the lack of burn to register in her desire-addled mind.

"Thank you," she breathes, and he just kisses her as night spirals with stars beyond the window. She falls asleep in his arms, enveloped in the golden glow of his mind, and for once there are no nightmares waiting for her.

Instead, she wakes into a living nightmares. Ebony Maw and Cull Obsidian on the streets of New York, her siblings confirmed on every news channel that Thanos has hold of all but one infinity stone. He's coming for the mind stone next.

"Well," Stark remarks, and his eyes swivel to Wanda, "you know Thanos better than any of us, Wanda. What do we do?"

* * *

The leather of her uniform feels wrong on her now. The chains of her necklaces are cold against her skin, the boots creaking around her ankles, and she has to focus to make her eyes blaze, to make her hair crackle with her power. Vision is openly staring at her, and she smiles slightly. "I know it's a very different costume to what I used to wear," she says, and he nods.

"Are you sure about this?" he asks, clearly rallying himself back to the Avenger he should be. "He could kill you, Wanda."

"He cares for me," she insists. "I'm his little witch, his Mistress of Chaos. I'll convince him that you will willingly give up the stone to me, and then we attack." She crosses the room, her coat moving around her like a cape, and reaches up to kiss him. "I will be fine, Vision. We can stop him."

"I know we can," he breathes, and kisses her twice more, quick and soft. "One for luck, my love. Please be careful."

"I will," she promises, and turns her back on him before she can want to stay. She kicks away from the entrance to the Wakandan palace and flies low over the battlefield, straight to where she can feel Thanos waiting. He is in her blood and bones, he made her the Scarlet Witch. He turned her into what will undo him.

And then something invisible wraps around her, and she shrieks as she's pulled out the sky, and Maw is standing over her, a terrible smile on his thin lips. "Sister," he hisses, "we've been so worried."

"Maw," she snaps. "What do you want? I have to speak to Father, I have news."

"You're a traitor, little witch," Maw snarls, and her blood freezes. "I smell that robot on you. How dare you betray our father when you know what Gamora did to him?" He throws his head back and laughs. "She paid for that. Our father loved her still, but not so now. She's dead, and Father's affections will no longer be swayed."

"Gamora is dead?" she gasps. She'd hoped to meet another daughter of Thanos, another one who ran away, learn her story. "I'm not like her, Maw, I'm-"

"Save the pleading, you know it does nothing for me," Maw snarls, and leans low over her, pulling a thin knife from the black leather sheath at his side. "I will enjoy hearing your screams, little sister."

The knife clatters to the ground a bare inch from her hand as the point of a scythe blooms through Maw's chest, and he's tossed aside to reveal Corvus behind him. He holds out one clawed hand, and Wanda takes it to get to her feet, grabbing the knife as she does. There can be no shortage of weapons in a battle like this. "Corvus-"

"Do not let our father take your love as he took mine, Wanda," he says, and before she can so much as blink he has lifted his scythe and plunged the blade into his own stomach.

She screams, and catches him as he falls, lowering him to the ground. "Corvus...why-"

"That's not my name," he breathes, and she takes in a deep breath, shuddering over tears that want to escape.

"Tilou," she whispers, and he smiles slightly, his eyes already going hazy. "I'm so sorry for what I did. I'm sorry for Proxima-"

"I will see her again," he says, and the smile softens his dying face. "In the lands beyond." And he stills, and she reaches out to close his eyes, laying his scythe across his chest in respect.

"Be at peace," she whispers in a prayer, and then she runs. Leaving the bodies of two siblings behind, she runs towards her father, and when his eyes find her something in his face lights up. And she wonders if he ever really loved her, or if she was just a replacement for Gamora.

"Little witch," he breathes, and she drops to one reverent knee in front of him, bowing her head to hide the hatred in her eyes. "You came home."

"Yes, Father," she breathes, and sends up a sparkling jet of red. The signal to Vision, and it reflects in her father's proud eyes. "I have completed my mission."

Vision lands next to her, and she gives her father a wicked smile, the sort she found so easily before she returned to Earth. "The mind stone, Father," she says sweetly, and Thanos smiles.

"You are clever, my witch," he says, and she beams, preens under his praise the way she used to. "Now...take the stone and give it to me."

"What?" She blinks at him, this new obstacle, and glances at Vision, the sudden fear in his eyes. She won't hurt him. "Father, I-"

"It won't hurt you, little witch, you're made from it," he says, and his eyes are hard, and she realises he's seen through a moment too late. "Or are you too in love with this machine to do it?"

"Father, I-"

" _Enough_!" he roars, and he grabs her, slamming her to the ground, breaking every healed part of her, and her scream echoes with Vision's. "Cull! Hold him!"

Cull Obsidian blooms from the fight and grabs Vision, slamming his arms behind his back, and when he shouts in pain she sobs, and Thanos is feral leaning over her, his eyes wild with fury. "How dare you betray me?!" he snarls, hitting her over and over again, every blow he deals making more terror dance in Vision's eyes as she watches. "I gave you _everything_ , little witch. I raised you up among the stars and made you better. You could have been so wonderful, the Mistress of Chaos, tearing the world apart. Why did you have to be so...so...so _human_?"

"Because I am human," she says weakly. Her ribs are broken again, she knows that screaming pain, but she blinks up at Thanos with hatred making her strong. "I'm human, and I cry, and I break, and I _love_. And you are human too, aren't you, Lord Thanos?"

"No!" he snarls, and slams his fist into her again, and Vision screams her name. "I am _more_!"

"I know you loved Gamora," she whispers, blood on her lips, her body screaming for the release of death. But she won't let herself spiral into dark, not when Thanos is still alive. Not while Vision is there, his golden mind full of terror, full of his love for her. "I know you have tried to replace her since she left you. You are _weak_ , Father."

"You are the weak one, seeking family in those who hurt you!" he shouts, deranged and breaking, falling all to pieces. "I loved you, Wanda! You would have been at my right hand forever!"

"You never loved me," she hisses, and somehow manages to leverage herself into a sitting position. "But the Avengers? They will."

"You are not a hero," Thanos whispers, a weapon that pierces right to the centre of her insecurities. "You will never be one."

"When you are dead at my hand, I will," she snarls, and his lips tug back, baring his teeth. But fear swims in her eyes, giving her the strength to stand.

"I will not fear you, little witch," he snaps, and she smiles, the Scarlet Witch's sadistic smile.

"You will." And the jets of red burst from her. A yell from behind her, and yellow twines amongst her magic, Vision's hand at her back, holding her up. And then there is the gold of the sorcerer's, Stark's suit, Thor's lightning, all of it tearing Thanos apart. His screaming could shake the world apart, and when everything goes black for a second she finds colour again staring at his smoke-stained body.

Cull roars, and charges. But Thor swings his axe up and beheads him, the head hitting the ground with a dull, disgusting thud. And Tony lifts up the visor of his suit, his face bloodied and bruised, and grins. "Holy shit," he remarks. "That was fun."

With a faint smile, Wanda collapses into Vision's waiting arms, hearing the sounds of someone calling for an EMT as he kneels over her, his hand cupped to her face. "Are you alright?" he asks, and she smiles faintly.

"He's gone," she says, and he nods. "I will be. One day." And she blinks up at him, the mind stone shining gold where it belongs. With him. Where she belongs too, the knowledge that warms the next words she weakly says. "I love you."

"I love you too," he promises, and kisses her forehead. "But don't try to talk anymore, Wanda. We'll get you to the medbay. You'll be alright."

His gold wraps around her as the shades of blue fade to grey, and she slips away into unconsciousness, knowing she'll be safe among the Avengers.

With the man she loves watching over her.


End file.
